outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

have fashioned a two-layer "mask" out of an old punk shirt for making deliveries. #aesthetic #chic #goals

https://i.imgur.com/4rvnc1d.png

wheeeeeeee

Terrifying and heartbreaking

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-boy-death-hospital-london-youngest-uk-ismail-abdulwahab-a9439526.html

Right-wing evangelist Jonathan Shuttlesworth, a close friend of Rodney Howard-Browne, says he intends to hold a large Woodstock-like Christian gathering in defiance of stay-at-home orders. pic.twitter.com/sn5Pvt1NA5

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) March 31, 2020

What is so broken in the minds of these evangelicals? Yes this individual asshat is likely attention/donation seeking, but I seriously don't understand this mass denial. Is this the hope of bringing on the second coming? This shit is baffling.

It is to pwn the libs.

Are you feeling pwn'd yet?

got a sore throat if that helps

That poor 13-year-old and family
This is just awful and everything I read like this makes me more scared.

If we could ensure they gather and can't leave again, I'd say let stupid follow stupid. But in addition to carrying it all over the fucking country they'll take beds and ventilators from people who caught it actually working on the front lines and doing essential tasks. The massive death cult that powers 40% of this country continues to terrify me.

What is so broken in the minds of these evangelicals? Yes this individual asshat is likely attention/donation seeking, but I seriously don't understand this mass denial. Is this the hope of bringing on the second coming? This shit is baffling.

coronavirus is their worst nightmare: it involves science and expertise, it involves global cooperation. seriously, for people like this it's just so closely associated with things they DO NOT WANT that their minds can't process it.

As silver linings go, that's not too shabby.

seriously, for people like this it's just so closely associated with things they DO NOT WANT that their minds can't process it.

I don't know, pestilence, plague, end of the world, the apocalypse ... this seems like something they *would* want.

but the temple hasn't been rebuilt in Jerusalem yet, the time hasn't come

If that was the case, they're not eager to stop it from happening. When everything is God's will, you're absolved from having to even try just the tiniest bit

xp well Trump moved the embassy there, what more do you want?

Jesus has already come back like, five times, cops just murdered him during welfare checks all five

So Sweden has not implemented any restrictions? Despite a curve in line with everyone else's (in proportion)?

they decided everybody deserves COVID and are implementing a national spread program

A long but layman-geared (i.e., to me) piece on trying to make sense of all the data and graphs.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-19-pandemic-data-primer-stats-charts-1.5513222

sweden is imposing a nationwide re-enactment of the cliff scene in midsommar

omg

i know, spoilers, right

Yesterday I got a tip that Hobby Lobby was secretly reopening stores and violating state-mandated closures. So I called all 39 stores in Wisconsin and Ohio and found that 36 of them reopened Monday. https://t.co/2ozUVpTcpk

— Bethany Biron (@bethanybiron) March 31, 2020

Hey, scrapbooking is in our nation's lifeblood. Not to mention macrame and decoupage. Do you just expect people to stop crocheting? What kind of monster are you?

I'm hearing that JoAnn Fabrics, Michael's, and Guitar Center (!?!) Have all remained open, citing various dubious excuses for why they are all essential.

i want all of the execs of Hobby Lobby dead

or at the very least, locked inside their own store, then boarded in

be compassionate. at least allow them one cask of amontillado to ease their transition to heaven.

where else will you buy that c-fold paper towel holder

So the FFCRA being effective April 1 really fucks a lot of employees. That means companies aren't required to offer the paid sick leave require to 4/1. Anybody who was out on leave ptior is shit out of luck. So my friend whose quarantine ended today will not get it, and unemployment is only paying her $89 a week for the two weeks she was out because of how little she earned in the previous quarters.

Also learned today states can refuse the federal unemployment enhancement. Being that the DOL is funding it, I don't think most will, but i can see some "personal responsibility" red state doing it

See Roy Andersson's 2000 film Songs from the Second Floor to get a taste of where the Swedish plan is going to lead.

I'm so worried about my family and friends in Sweden. This might get catastrophically bad.

this piece on how the lockdown is being implemented across the globe is grim as hell:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/01/extreme-coronavirus-lockdown-controls-raise-fears-for-worlds-poorest

And in Italy:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/singing-stops-italy-fear-social-unrest-mount-coronavirus-lockdown

any excuse for a bit of state violence :(

I'm so worried about my family and friends in Sweden. This might get catastrophically bad.

I hear you, Fred. I'm wondering if the Swedish woman I work with, who was trying to get flights back to Sweden for her and her children just before our work got shut down, made it back to Sweden - and if she's regretting it now.

One of the things I'm deeply worried about is the impact that the collapse in tourism is going to have on countries or regions that rely on it but experienced serious political instability within recent memory, particularly parts of South America, Asia etc.

I'd include Portugal in that category.

https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106466188-1585556988689gettyimages-1208432583.jpeg?v=1585557109&w=1910

This photo feels bizarre: Stockholm, March 27th. But it feels just as bizarre to realise an image like this already feels bizarre.

I read this comparison on Danish site TheLocal, about the wildly different approaches of Denmark and Sweden: https://www.thelocal.dk/20200320/why-is-denmarks-lockdown-so-much-more-severe-than-swedens

It's anyone's guess I suppose but I have to admit I fear for my Swedish friends as well, reading that.

FT continuing to do good graph work:

https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

Don't know what to make of the Swedish approach. My GF is Swedish, so she's in constant contact with extended family in the Stockholm suburbs. They all seem to be taking it seriously - social distancing, kids out of school, grocery deliveries, WFH, avoiding the city - but they know that's not the norm. Seems to be gentlest of advisories, with the longest lead-time on bringing down the hammer of any EU country (I think they will, eventually).

(It's not something we talk about too much, it's too stressful; she's just been furloughed for eight weeks as a result of this anyway).

If the Chinese numbers are accurate (gigantic if I know) then that Italy levelling off is heartening and suggests there might be a decline coming soon. Obviously China has been far more draconian in its approach to the lockdown.

I don't understand the aversion to locking down early. All evidence seems to be that social distancing works and if you lock down when the virus is less widespread then ultimately you don't have to do it for as long? Sweden will surely have to follow everyone else sooner or later and when they do it will take months becuase the rate of transmission will have been so much higher. And that's not taking into account the thousands of preventable deaths.

What's Swedish healthcare capacity like relative to the population size? I guess that has an effect as well.

Supposedly it's very good, excellent in fact. And I think that is what they are banking on. But they are playing hazard. My family is taking it very serious as well, but my uncle is a doctor, so I don't think staying at home is an option here, and his health has never been good.

ahem

On a slightly unrelated note, I still have no idea what Sweden's game plan is.

― coco vide (pomenitul), Monday, 30 March 2020 19:23 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

*lagom plan

― Microbes oft teem (wins), Monday, 30 March 2020 19:27 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Healthcare only goes so far for an untreatable disease. We're trying to tell friends and family in Japan to get ahead and isolate now, not sure it's entirely getting through though.

Malaysia is turning a corner - barring any disasters, we are looking good at flattening the curve sooner than expected. We are not under strict lockdown but borders are closed and internal movement has been drastically curbed, with full lockdowns in districts with spikes in cases. Our PM repeated the phrase “just stay at home” six times in his speech announcing the measures a couple of weeks ago, just to make sure people got the message.

Our economy though is going to take a massive, massive hit - we are heavily export-oriented so this situation was bad to begin with but now we’re looking at widespread unemployment, hunger and poverty. It’s going to be a very sad Ramadan and Eid.

I really don't know why countries didn't lock down earlier or put more measures in place. Everyone wants to believe that they are different, that they are more ideally, naturally equipped to deal with emergencies because, like I referred to above, *usually* the virus stays in a faraway country we don't care about, usually we don't get sick, usually we recover. And there are very few people that are in leadership roles willing to make the correct call when it seems premature when premature and proactive is what is required.

And plus, I don't think a lot of people in positions of power really care too much about the wrong type of people dying. It's less stress on funds.

People are just believing whatever they want. I know someone who is convinced the only reason the US leads in number of cases is because we're testing more than other nations, and that Asian countries are lying about their cases, which, per capita, is just bullshit. So he thinks it's a nothingburger.

Just takes several leaders of a government thinking it's a nothingburger to lead to temporary inaction long enough to cause long term damage.

xp sounds like you really do know why countries didn't lock down earlier (or at least, I agree with you about why they didn't).

yeah i was just talking in that... I don't know why you don't know better kind of way. it's baffling.

so of the two people I know who have this, both experienced fevers for several days before any other coughing symptoms (both are quarantined in their homes; two people are not related, in different states, one here in Berkeley and one in Amherst). I got somewhat pwned on FB responding to someone who said the virus was mutating when I said there wasn't any evidence of that; apparently that's untrue, and there are like 8 strains that are being examined now. This seems...potentially bad? but maybe that explains why some people are having different symptoms start at different times?